Woman (32) sentenced in the Supreme Court for IS participation – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
The woman stayed brought back to Norway from Syria with her two children in January 2020and arrested on arrival.
A majority in the country’s highest court states that a housewife married to a foreign fighter in IS can be punished for participation in a terrorist organisation.
The decision states that the woman must be punished for IS participation from the period June 2013, when the law against participation in a terrorist organization was introduced, until the turn of the year 2013/2014.
The woman voluntarily chose to support her husband Bastian Vasquez’s fight as a foreign fighter, after the ban was introduced, the Supreme Court points out.
– By doing housework and taking good care of him at home, she fulfilled the important role intended for women in IS, the decision states.
is described as “active and qualified contribution to this by the terrorist organisation”.
The 32-year-old will not return to prison, as the sentence is considered to have been served during the time she has been in prison. The woman stayed released from Bredtveit women’s prison before the trial in the district court in May last year, after spending over a year in custody.
Lived under duress
The Norwegian-Pakistani woman was sentenced in April to up to a year and a half in prison for IS participation in the Borgarting Court of Appeal. The sentence was one year lighter than in the district court. The Court of Appeal agreed with the woman that she was exploited for human trafficking in the time after her husband Bastian Vasquez died.
In October, it became known that the prosecution reversed the case, and assumed that the woman had been forced into domestic work and sexual services for several years.
Now the Supreme Court has lowered the penalty even further.
In the decision from the Supreme Court, it is stated that there are several mitigating circumstances which are given great weight when sentencing. The Supreme Court emphasizes that the woman lived in a forced situation for over five years, in the period after she came to Syria.
Furthermore, it is said that the IS spouses sexually assaulted her, and that she was subjected to violence. The woman has said that she was forced to take additional husbands in Syria after Vasquez died.
– The conditions in the Al-Hol refugee camp, where she stayed until January 2020, are dangerous and inhumane. She has distanced herself from her actions, and she has contributed to the children now being able to grow up safely, the judgment says.
First to return
In connection with the previous round of court, pronounced defender Nils Christian Nordhus appealed that the woman did not agree that being a spouse, housewife and babysitter can be said to be participation in the Islamic State.
The 32-year-old is the first so-called IS woman to have returned to Norway from Syria.
The woman and her children was taken by the Norwegian authorities from the al-Hol camp in Syria in January 2020, because it was suspected that the eldest child was seriously ill. The woman was arrested by the Police’s security service when she landed at Gardermoen.
The fact that the woman was brought to Norway was the primary reason for that The Progress Party left Erna Solberg’s government soon after.
Go to Syria
The now 32-year-old woman from Oslo went to the civil war in Syria in February 2013 to be with Norwegian foreign fighter Bastian Vasquez, whom she had married online.
Vasquez from Skien, who had converted to Islam, later became a front figure for the terrorist group IS in several propaganda films.
The Supreme Court has therefore emphasized that IS participation was not punishable at the time the woman traveled to Syria. The Supreme Court also assumes that the Norwegian-Pakistani woman wanted to return to Norway from around the turn of 2013/2014.
After Vasquez died, she married a Sharia judge and when he died, she married a third man in the IS-controlled areas of Syria. The Supreme Court believes that the actions during this period were characterized by coercion, and thus cannot be punished.
After the so-called caliphate was defeated at the beginning of 2019, the woman and the children she had had in Syria were put in the al-Hol detention camp, along with thousands of other women and children.
The Court of Appeal writes that she traveled of her own free will to Syria to join a terrorist organisation.
“She knew that she would be subject to a strong patriarchal regime, where her freedom of action and movement would be severely restricted.”
The sentence against the IS woman has significance for other Norwegian IS women who remained in camps in Syria.
The woman and the IS fighters
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Woman charged with terrorism (32)
- Norwegian citizen, born in Pakistan. Came to Norway as a four-year-old. Raised on the east side of Oslo.
- Be part of the environment around the Prophet’s Ummah. There she met her husband Bastian Vasquez.
- Went to Syria in the winter of 2013, where she married Vasquez. The two had a son.
- Later married twice more in Syria. Vasquez and second husband are dead.
- Was brought to Norway together with two children in January 2020, with the assistance of the Norwegian police and employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Arrested by PST on arrival in Norway. Later indicted for terrorist participation.
- “By looking after their child and taking care of various tasks in the home, she facilitated the conditions for NN (the first husband) to take part in combat actions in ISIL”, the indictment states. The same usage is also used in relation to women’s second husband.
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First husband: Bastian Vasquez
- Norwegian-Chilean IS fighter. Born on 9 April 1990, in Skien in Telemark and Vestfold.
- Was married to the terror accused IS woman. The two had a son together (6).
- In an interview with NRK, she pointed to Vasquez as the reason for her going to Syria.
- In September 2012, Vasquez participated in a demonstration with the Prophet’s Ummah in Oslo, with Arfan Bhatti among others. In the same year, Vasquez is featured in a YouTube video with threats against the royal house.
- Going to Syria, probably in October 2012. In January 2013, a picture is published where Vasquez and another well-known Islamist, Mohyeldeen Mohammad from Larvik, are holding IS flags in Syria.
- In the summer of 2014, Vasquez appears in an IS propaganda film.
- According to the Norwegian police, Vasquez died in connection with the manufacture of bombs for IS in April 2015.
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Second husband: “The Sharia judge”
- The woman’s second husband in Syria. Must be from Egypt.
- Has a child with the terror-accused Norwegian-Pakistani woman, a girl born in 2016.
- “Actively participated in armed missions for the organization and he was also a Sharia judge for ISIL”, according to the indictment.
- Norwegian police believe the IS woman also facilitated the possibility that this husband could participate in IS, by looking after their joint children.
- The Sharia judge died fighting for IS/ISIL in March 2017, according to the indictment.
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Third husband: Friend of the Sharia judge
- Egyptian man. Associated with IS, according to the prosecution.
- Married the IS woman after the Sharia judge died fighting for IS in March 2017.
- Was a friend of the sharia judge, according to the indictment against the IS woman.
- The defendant has explained that she does not believe the man had IS connections, but made a living by selling yoghurt and mobile phones.
- The defendant says this man tried to help her leave Syria.
Other actors
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Ubaydullah Hussain
- Norwegian Islamist, born 20 August 1985.
- Full name is Arslan Ubaydullah Maroof Hussain.
- Currently serving a sentence of 9 years in prison for participation in IS, and for cases of terrorist recruitment.
- First known as a spokesperson for the Islamist group Prophet’s Ummah.
- Hussain had contact with the woman accused of terrorism, who became part of the environment around the Prophet’s Ummah.
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Aisha Shezadi Kausar
- Born in Bærum hospital, raised in Bærum.
- Became nationally known when, from 2010, she participated in the public social debate to talk about her use of the niqab.
- Went to Syria in 2014. Took a son from Norway with him. The son lost his life in Syria.
- Kausar has also been married to Bastian Vasquez, and lived in the same house as the woman accused of terrorism in Syria.
- In 2018, Kausar wrote a letter to the Norwegian authorities, in which she asked for help to get to Norway.
- In 2019, Kausar told NRK that she regretted the letter.
- Kausar is detained in the Roj camp in north-east Syria.
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Little sister from Bærum
- Born 1997. One of the main characters in Åsne Seierstad’s book “To sisters”.
- Supposed to have gotten to know the woman charged with terrorism through the religious association Islam Net.
- Informed the family that she was on her way to Syria in October 2013.
- The woman has been wanted and is under investigation by PST.
- In October 2021, she told NRK at she wants to go home to Norway.
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Big sister from Bærum
- Born 1993. One of the main characters in Åsne Seierstad’s book “To søstre”.
- Supposed to have gotten to know the woman charged with terrorism through the religious association Islam Net.
- Informed the family that she was on her way to Syria in October 2013. Married a Norwegian foreign fighter in Syria.
- The woman has requested and is under investigation by PST.
- In October 2021, she told NRK that she wants to go home to Norway.